Ace of spades.

The Bay Swim

About May time I decided to have my first go at the lake so I started preparing my bait. My first choice (as always) was to go for a mixed size Betaine pellet using 18mm SAS Boilies as the hook bait. This combo had done me well for years and I had every confidence in it. Bait and food packed, I kissed the Mrs goodbye (my good deed done for the day!) and headed for Ringwood.
On arrival all looked well and a good south-westerly pushed some mediocre waves across the lake towards the road bank corner. My first thought was ‘Right, now what would Dave Lane or Terry Hearn do next?’ As I pondered this question there was a fantastic splash about 30 yards to my left as a carp crashed back into the water. Aha! There was my answer!

I had looked at this swim many times before and seen two good looking spots to place my baits – one was a light coloured gravel bar with silt on each side that jetted out from the margin and the other was the bottom of a steep drop off that ended in a silt bed. Nice! 
The only problem was I had never seen any fish here before! This was the big issue with my attack on this lake; I had only seen a handful of fish in the water. In fact, I was really struggling to see anything at all. I tried to get up some trees (please hold the laughter) but even this didn’t help, and it was only later when I discovered why this was.

My first session passed with the only bit of excitement being a few bleeps from the middle indicator. I was quite sure that my bait was not the problem so I looked to make some adjustments to my rigs. I had been using one of Kryston’s coated rig materials in a knotless-knot format with a size 8 Drennan continental hook, but I wanted to go back to something simple and effective that Steve Renyard and I had discussed a few years earlier, which was a basic mono-rig of about 12 inches fixed to a helicopter rig mounted on a 35lb leadcore leader.

Old Rig	New Design

This particular rig has helped me with some really shy fish before in other lakes and, as the fish in this particular lake had rarely been seen on the bank, I suspected that they were either not big Boilie fans or had a bit of rig intellect about them. 

In the car on the way to my second session I decided to spend some time baiting some areas and see if I could spot fish and get an idea about what was happening down there. I filled a bucket with crushed SAS Boilies and Betaine pellets and put a couple of handfuls into three different spots so I could easily keep my eye on them. Not a great deal was happening until half way through the session when I noticed some movement in the water over one of my ‘close chuck’ baits. I made my way through the bushes as quietly as I could to get a better vantage point. When I peered over the top of the bush I could see the backs of two carp, one mirror and one common, both about twenty pounds in weight and both really, really dark fish! This explained why I was having so much trouble seeing these animals in their habitat - they were as black as the ace of spades!

The fish were busy stirring up the bottom and I could have watched them all day as they slowly mooched about, but as I watched they rose up and moved away from the bait together and made their way over to a near by weed bed. They circled it a couple of times about a foot off of the bottom, then made their way back towards me. As they came over, one of the fish moved off in a cloud of silt and I heard a screaming noise… when I reached the rod the tip was bent round towards where I had just come from so I hit it immediately and could not help but wonder if it was the common or the mirror that I had hooked. The fish was really fit and strong and made some incredibly fast runs (I thought he must have had his weetabix!) so when it hit the net I was really pleased to have broken my duck with my first old stocky mirror of 19lb 15oz. Result!

First fish on the bank.

My next session on the mini-pit did not arrive for quite some time what with work commitments and so on, but when it did I could not get to the lake fast enough!
I turned up to almost the same weather conditions as when I had landed the mirror so, without even taking a look around the lake, I made my way to the road bank swim and positioned the baits just as I had done before. Then I had a good look around the margins to see if there were any fishy signs but, as I was carrying out my investigation, I was spun round by a single bleep and a slowly rising solar dangler! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Off it went with the rod tip curved round to the point where the rod almost freed itself from the bank stick and then… nothing. Just as I finished my dash the tip swung back round to near its original resting position. 
B######S! 
It must have pulled the hook as I was fishing up tight to a weedy snag. I lifted the rod to retrieve the end tackle and the rod looped over to reveal that the fish had not gotten away at all! I could feel the fish kicking as it sat in the weed bed so I applied a tiny bit of pressure and I could see a large clump of weed making its way towards me. As the green mound approached me, another angler stepped into the water fully clothed with my net in his hand to help land the fish. What the …? I didn’t even know there was anyone else on the lake that day so this came as a bit of a shock! It turns out this guy had been fishing the little lake for some time and had failed to get a take, so seeing me into a lump he had decided to lend a hand! Wet trainers and all!!

As the green lump made its way slowly over the carbon goal posts a smile crept onto my face - I had returned and banked a fish straight away. As we peeled back the weed we had our first look at a gorgeous fin perfect common carp. It pushed the scales round to 21lb 4ozs.

I really enjoyed my time on the little lake and I know one day I will go back to try and find some of the lake’s larger residents but until then I will have to be happy with my mirror and my common. Result.

See you in the shop

Alan Shergold.